The present application relates to a flush pull door handle and more specifically to a flush pull door handle and assembly affixable and readily removable from a door.
Door handles primarily consist of knobs, arms or similar shapes. These types of handles have varying benefits, including reducing difficulties for persons with disabilities to use the door. Most public buildings, including schools, government buildings, corporate offices, etc. have pull handles that extend out from the door.
It is also very common for large entrance areas to include double-doors with mirrored door handles extending out from the door. While on the interior portion of the door, there are usually push-bars or emergency exit bars based on fire code requirements. The technology relating to the existing outwardly extending door handles is well known and well established in the marketplace.
Problems can arise from outwardly extending door handles, including significant safety concerns. For example, it is possible for a malfeasant actor to apply chains to the door via the handles, preventing the doors from being opened from the inside. The door handles, extending out from the door, provide the perfect hooking mechanisms to grasp chains or other items causing the doors to remain unopenable. Such events have occurred in at least one mass casualty on a university campus, students having lost their lives in part from being trapped from chains around door handles preventing escape.
A flush pull handle mounted on a door provides a simple solution to prevent doors from being held secured together using chains or other means. The problem is that flush pull handle technology is extremely limited. Current flush pull handles are physically molded into the doors themselves. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,282,753 describes a flush mount door handle that is recessed within a doorframe, but this door handle is physically mounted into the door such that the handle cannot be removed or changed without dismantling the actual door. This prior art flush pull handle focuses on the novel design of having an angled back portion to allow cleaning.
Another example of limiting flush pull handle prior art is U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,554 showing a pull handle that can be inserted into an existing door. While this allows for minor modifications to the door, this prior art door handle further evidences the limitations of needing to modify or take apart the door to install and remove the door handle. In this system, the door handle is secured to the door itself while the door is being manufactured. This system then requires the manufacturing of the door and the pull handle to be done concurrently, as well as limiting the door to always require that pull handle. If the handle needs repair or replacement, the door itself must be taken apart or the whole door is then replaced.
Existing safety concerns note the value of a flush pull door handle to prevent the doors from being improperly secured together. But, the existing prior art require manufacturing of the door and the handle together, thus requiring a special manufacture of the door. Similarly, the existing technology, by combining the door and the handle into a single manufactured unit, inhibits removal and/or replacement of the handle.
As such, there exists a need for a flush pull door handle that can be affixed into a door assembly, as well as readily removable.